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STRETCHES TO While the hot water relaxes your muscles during your morning shower, take five minutes to do these stretches. You might feel like you're doing the maca rena, but ten reps of these stretches done several times a day can reduce the chance of developing CTS, and may offer relief if CTS symptoms are present. These stretches also may relieve tennis elbow. RELIEVE CTS 1. Extend your hands as if you were doing a push-up, and hold for five seconds. 1. Straighten your wrists, and relax your fingers. Tennis elbow is inflammation of the tendon attaching the extensor muscles to the elbow. Lateral epicondyle Tendon Overuse of the extensor muscles leads to pain here. ing a lot of overhead work, hanging drywall, fascias and soffits. These activities are on shoulders. As with elbows, it's important to get the work as close to you as possible. Scott's repetitive overhead work irritated all killers the tendons in a group of shoulder muscles called the rotator cuff. When the shoulder was designed, there was no space set aside for angry, engorged tendons. Scott had continued to work through the pain. As with CTS or tennis elbow, working through pain is a big mistake. When your 80 FINE HOMEBUILDING the movement of the hand and wrist. They connect to the While they connect to the hand in several places, they all epicondyle. That's why too much strenuous gripping with body talks to you, listen. Scott should have cut back and rested his shoulder when he first experienced pain, not a month later. Had he cut back, the problem would have probably resolved on its own. Pressing on, he added to the inflammation and swelling, compounding the problem. As with the elbow, a hot shower beating on your shoulder, followed by some simple exercises, can loosen it up (bottom photo, facing page). Over-the-counter anti-inflammatories are also helpful. hand with tendons and can exert tremendous gripping force. attach to the elbow at the single point of the lateral your hands can make your elbow hurt. The extensor muscles in the forearm control I limited Scott's work to waist height, put him on a prescription anti-inflammatory, injected his shoulder bursa with an antiinflammatory and sent him to physical therapy. He improved, but it took six months. Scott will not work through pain again. A small number of patients don't improve with conservative treatment, and they need surgery. Typically done arthroscopically (through a tube inserted in a small incision), this surgery consists of decompressing the shoulder by cutting through the coracoacro